Tag Archives: Alaska

Island Otters and Ancient People

Hello there! My name is Hannah, and I am a graduate student at the University of Oregon, and your guest blogger for the week!

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Hannah excavating at the Kashevaroff Site, summer 2015

My study focus is on zooarchaeology, which is the study of animal remains, like bones and teeth. I’m especially interested in how humans and mammals interacted in coastal environments over time and how archaeology might intersect with understanding wildlife conservation. My recent research has been about sea otter populations in the past in the state of Oregon. I’m interested in understanding how Oregon sea otter populations have differed from those in California and Washington over thousands of years so we can understand how to best manage them today.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/09/pictures/140920-sea-otter-awareness-pictures-animals-ocean-science/

Even though I study sea otter bones, I have never seen a wild sea otter before this Saturday, when we had a bonfire on a beach at Chiniak here on Kodiak. This is because sea otters were nearly extirpated (or basically rendered extinct) along the Northwest Coast by the 1900s, except for a few groups in Alaska and California. Attempts to reintroduce the species to Oregon failed, so it wasn’t until I left the state I could see one in the wild! Thankfully the sea otter is doing better in some areas, and has been reintroduced in British Columbia and Washington.

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Measuring an archaeological sea otter humerus!

However, it is interesting for me to think about sea otters in Alaska specifically, because sea otters were extirpated largely due to Russian hunting – the incoming Russian traders pressured and forced the Alutiiq and other Native peoples along the Pacific coast to obtain sea otters for the 18th and 19th century fur trade. So while sea otters had been hunted before, it was hunted to an unprecedented degree for its furs in this era. Based on the artifact types recovered from the site of Karluk on Kodiak, dug and housed at the Alutiiq Museum, a recent publication suggests sea otters were not intensively hunted until Russian fur traders arrived  (Steffian et al. 2015).

The history of sea otters in Alaska from prehistory to the modern day is about conservation, discussions of colonialism, indigenous rights, and environmental and human exploitation. Being on this beautiful island has reminded me of the interdisciplinary nature of archaeology – it is complicated and messy beyond the mud and dust.

Check out the newest book from the Alutiiq Museum: Steffian, Amy, Marnie Leist, Sven Haakanson, and Patrick Saltonstall. 2015. Kal’unek: From Karluk. University of Alaska Press, Fairbanks.

It’s the Pits

Literally.

Rachel Gill back again to talk more about our site specifically and the journey into forming and testing a hypothesis. Science at work!

For the past two weeks, the Community Archaeology team has been agonizing over what the heck is going on in the vast 5x5 grid excavation affectionately named "Block B". Patrick and Catherine, our intrepid co-leaders, have toyed with a series of hypotheses, which culminated in the complicated excavation of a series of smoking pits.

But that conclusion was hard-won; let me take you through our two-week journey into the pits of Block B.

Initially, maybe a year or two ago when the study was in its infancy, a geologist used ground penetrating radar (GPR) to see if the main excavation extended past a series of trees. They found a depression beneath the sods, so naturally, the archaeologists thought house. And that's exactly the mindset we had when we stuck our shovels into the sod. The sheer amount of the first layer of ash, called Katmai, and how deep it was in some areas, was encouraging. It got deeper in the middle and was shallow on the outsides and all of that basically screamed house.

At least for the first three hours.

11222308_867149070020694_1765579128855250353_nBlock B just after the sod and Katmai ash was removed
and before the real excavation started

As we dug deeper into the ash, a series of mounds started to take form. So, people started to change their hypotheses; someone said it was a house with multiple rooms while others thought it may even be more than one house. One boy even joked that they were some kind of burial mounds, eliciting a cry of dissent from the crew. We left the first day all speculating.

In the days to come, a few things started to take shape. In two opposite corners of the excavation, our team found two rock features. (Another brief vocab lesson: a feature carries evidence of human activity like a hearth or a wall.) The one on the east end was larger than the other, with a series of rock piles in the middle of a pit of charcoal-stained soil. The west end had smaller rocks and less charcoal, so it seemed that the two-house theory might have support. We called this gravel layer Level 1A g (creatively, for gravel!).

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAAlutiiq Museum intern Jesse kneeling next to
the smaller rock feature

It turned out that this thick, gravelly layer of charcoal-stained earth (L1Ag) actually seeped beneath other layers. Level 2A, the thick orange ash that dates to 3800 years ago, was actually on top of our L1Ag. This bizarre shift in stratigraphy forced us to reevaluate our "hearth" theory.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAStudents Alexandria and Jeannine excavate the
larger rock and charcoal feature

That was when Patrick thought about a smoke pit; according to him, they are some of the most common sites around Kodiak. The 3800 year-old ash that covers the L1Ag gravel-charcoal layer is mixed with darker brown soil, which made him think that perhaps there was one very large smoke pit covered with a roof made out of sod and ash. At one point or another the roof collapsed inward, possibly in a fire, covering the charcoal and rock underneath. For this to be true, we would eventually find a soil basically the color of bright orange Cheeto dust, which would indicate this severe burning.

The charcoal layer kept expanding, but no Cheeto dust.

Finally, the bizarre stratigraphy started to make sense when Patrick suggested that some of the ash layer may have been dug up and redeposited. Eventually, after a massive discussion, we came the conclusion that it's possible that one very large pit had been dug, used, covered when the ash fell, and then more smoke pits were dug after the ash fell. It's possible that these smoke pits were dug in contemporary periods or two entirely different sets of people used the same place for a smoking pit. (This is very much still up in the air and undecided amongst the crew.)

tumblr_ns8djaCak91roi5j1o1_540Student Rachel crouches in the extended smoke pit - note the charcoal-rich L1Ag at her feet, and the 3800-year old ash fall (L2) that covered the pit.

Still, we have one more week to excavate and perhaps our hypothesis will change or alter once more. Because that's the nature of this kind of investigation: as your evidence changes, your hypothesis is tested and may be challenged. And absolute certainty is a difficult thing to achieve, but the possibility is always there.

Sometimes archaeology is the pits. But it's the pits that always make it interesting.

Community Archaeology: A Summary

Please welcome Rachel Gill, a senior archaeology major at Boston University, who will be blogging about our adventures on Kodiak!

On a small island just a 90 minute flight from Anchorage, Alaska, Kodiak has been home to the Alutiiq people for nearly 8,000 years.

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Much of the landscape remains touched only by time and weather; mountains and trees tower above bays shrouded in mist and clouds almost constantly loom in the distance. And nearly all of Native American prehistory, from the ancient Ocean Bay period to the more recent Russian colonization, lies somewhere beneath the soil. With more than 1,300 known sites across the archipelago and many more left to be unearthed,  modern Alutiiqs now have ways to not only answer the questions they have about their own past due to aggressive and brutal western colonization, but connect with their ancient ancestors on a personal level thanks to Community Archaeology.

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Pioneered by Alutiiq Museum archaeologists in 1997, because of native curiosity and the escalating fear of site erosion and disturbance (accidental or intentional), Blisky was the very first site to be excavated by community volunteers. And with over 3,500 artifacts brought to the surface and studied, in the spring of 1998 the Community Archaeology project was born.

Nearly 17 years later, Community Archaeology has hosted at least one month-long excavation every summer. (High school and college age participants may also get course credit for the excavation as I am experiencing personally and the museum also employs a few interns every year to help with the project.)

Ultimately the goal is to understand how these ancient people used the land to work, live, exist. Through time, the settlement patterns of the Alutiiq, their tools, and priorities change. The daunting question is to figure out how, when, and why these patterns and tools shifted and altered.

Capture
Curator Patrick Saltonstall, Alutiiq Museum

Volunteers and students start by attending a small introductory session to explain the basics of excavation, where the site is located, and why they are interested in digging there at all. This year, just like last, we're excavating a few grids at the Kashevaroff site near Salonie Creek where they found a house in excavations past. (Don't worry, there won't be a quiz.) College students and directors of the project start the Friday before, surveying the site and setting up grid points for the volunteers to excavate in the coming weeks.

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Boston University student Rachel Gill, volunteers Leslie and Courtney, and BU professor Catherine West

Day 1 always brings two words every Alaskan archaeologist knows will only bring fatigue and muscle pain: sod busting. An unfortunately necessary evil because we have to remove the sod and a layer of volcanic ash before we can even think about reaching the goodies underneath.

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BU student Sami Kassell excavates

The rest of the dig brings the removal of layer after painstaking layer with a mucky dustpan and muddy trowel. Artifact recovery never moves at a steady pace; there are days where someone can't go five minutes without finding something new and interesting and exciting; and then there are days where it takes hours to find anything more than a rather disappointing pebble amidst all the mud.

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Ground slate point!

But in the end, no matter the quantity of artifacts recovered or the sheer volume of dirt moved (which, believe me, can be immense), the community interest and the desire to preserve a Native history that was nearly wiped out by Westerners is what drives the museum and the project.

As perfectly stated by Patrick Saltonstall and Amy Steffian, two of the Alutiiq Museum's archaeologists: "Archaeology is much more than an academic discipline... archaeology is a practice with profound social consequences." Everything we find as archaeologists is just a piece of the vast history of the human race. It can change entire views of ancient cultures and people and cause a stir around the world. Community Archaeology seeks to let the local people be a part of this incredible unveiling of the past. 

Even they have to be covered in mud to do it.